Even if there are many questions regarding Android and GPS my doubt is really specific to the user level location settings.

Supposing I've enabled the GPS settings, say from the Power Control widget, and no application is actually requesting location updates.. what is the impact of this situation on battery life?

Does the settings location flag start some activity in background, maybe a location service?. Is some radio activity initiated by having the flag on? or can I assume that if no app will register for updates my battery life will be more or less the same?

5 Answers
5

Normally your battery life will be the same. Only if applications start requesting GPS updates the battery will be affected. The switch from the Power Control is just a shortcut to prohibit / allow applications to enable GPS location updates.

Enabling GPS does not actually activate GPS. It just allows applications to activate the GPS. So leaving the GPS flag on all the time will not consume battery power unless applications activate the GPS and ask for the current location.